Archive - Jul 13, 2011

Market regulators forcing short squeezes? Check. Central banks using mob-style gimmicks to push the price of "assets" around? Check. Market confidence back to 100%? We'll have to get back to you on that. Gold spot just touched on a fresh new intraday all time high of just under $1,579... and is going much, much higher. After all, the most important question - Everyone is broke? Check.

Despite empirical evidence that someone big stepped an and bought the bejeezus out of Italian bonds yesterday ahead of the Bill auction, and despite Willem Buiter's warning that tomorrow's critical BTP auction will fail absent ECB intervention, some of our transatlantic colleagues were panning long-winded essays that it is supremely irrational for the ECB to even think it can control the Italian bond market because of X, Y and Z. We, on the other contend, that precisely because it is supremely irrational is why the ECB will do it. And now we have evidence that if nothing else (and we will know for sure next week if the ECB bought the bonds after the weekly SMP details are released over the weekend, as else it would show that the PBOC is actively buying Italy bonds in the secondary market). And in the absence of actual buying, yoday we get another view at just how the ECB thinks it can manipulate markets. From Dow Jones: "Moody's junking Ireland is of particular concern "as many market participants have more hope for the Irish recovery story relative to Greece and Portugal," says ING rates strategist Padhraic Garvey. "Moody's have a different view." Garvey also says that the ECB asked for prices of sovereign bonds Tuesday but "there was no evidence that the ECB actually bought peripheral paper." Translation- the ECB sends out a OWIC (Offers Wanted in Competition), and dealers are supposed to soil themselves knowing full well that even if Trichet does or does not bid, other dealers may. Game theory 101.

Italy has now become the new victim as worries of a debt crisis contagion, as it is euro zone's third largest economy and the next weak link in the region. Italy's predicament could also be partly attributed to the political power struggle. If the Italian sings a good political opera, the United States gets an Emmy for its political soap.

Frequent Zero Hedge readers may recall that back in the spring of 2009, when the market needed a desperate boost by any and all insivible hands, we exposed one of the methods of ramping stocks as being stock custodians, in this case State Street and Bank of New York, generating a wholesale squeeze by pulling borrow, or in other words retrieving lent out shares so those who are short are forced to cover. Many laughed assuming this was merely yet another deranged rant. It wasn't. Fast forward to today, when we learn that the Consob, Italy's market regulator and SEC equivalent, has "recommended to stakeholders who have lent shares in Italian companies to retrieve them" - i.e., playbook artificial short squeeze 101. This is two days after the Consob banned naked short selling: a move which had disastrous consequences after the market continued plunging and would have collapsed entirely had it not been for the ECB and/or China buying Italy bonds before yesterday's Bill auction. ""Yes, we've exercised moral suasion by asking all those who have lent shares to retrieve them," Consob Chairman Giuseppe Vegas told journalists on the sideline of a conference." And now you know how to generate a market-wide short squeeze.

A snapshot of the European Morning Briefing covering Stocks, Bonds, FX, etc.
Market Recaps to help improve your Trading and Global knowledge

Important News by www.thetrader.se